Republicans needed Vice President Mike Pence to cast a tie-breaking vote Thursday in the Senate to advance legislation that rolls back rules preventing states from withholding certain federal funds to Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers.

With opposition from two Republican women, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Republicans did not have enough votes with their slim 52-seat majority to advance the bill.

Pence, a longtime opponent of abortion, arrived to cast the vote breaking the 50-50 tie — and will be expected to do so later Thursday on final passage.

Mar. 30, 2017, 9:16 a.m.

A Senate committee on Thursday narrowly approved R. Alexander Acosta to be Labor secretary, moving to fill one of President Trump’s few remaining vacant Cabinet posts.

The nomination of Acosta, a law school dean and former Justice Department official, was approved by a 12-11 vote by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. All of the panel’s Republicans supported the nomination; all of the Democrats were opposed.

If confirmed in a full Senate vote, which is expected soon, Acosta will be the only Latino in Trump’s Cabinet. A date for the final vote hasn’t been set.

Mar. 30, 2017, 9:04 a.m.

The Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Thursday into Russian efforts to influence the November elections has been a long history lesson, tracing Moscow's decades-long efforts to use misinformation to undermine democracies.

But Clinton Watts, of the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University, provided a roadmap to better understanding the Kremlin's efforts. He urged senators and the U.S. government to follow the money to figure out how misinformation websites and social media outlets are being funded.

While the Russians conducted their hacking in the Internet's shadows, their efforts to influence the election was hardly a secret, he said.

Mar. 30, 2017, 11:00 a.m.

Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto during the International Arctic Forum in Arkhangelsk, Russia, on Thursday. (Sergei Karpukhim / AFP/Getty Images)

Calling the accusations “lies,” Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday denied that Moscow meddled in last year’s U.S. elections.

"Read my lips, no," Putin said during a panel moderated by CNBC, according to a report on the news agency’s website.

"All those things are fictional, illusory and provocations, lies,” the Russian president said. “All these are used for domestic American political agendas. The anti-Russian card is played by different political forces inside the United States to trade on that and consolidate their positions inside.

Mar. 30, 2017, 8:46 a.m.

Moscow has stepped up its interference in U.S. and European elections, using social media, hacking and other tools to undermine public confidence and to raise doubts about the U.S as an ally, Russia experts told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday.

The committee was taking testimony from experts in Russian propaganda and intelligence operations as part of its investigation into Moscow's meddling in the 2016 election.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the panel, emphasized that in addition to examining the broad topic of Russian efforts to influence the election, the panel also must seek to answer whether President Trump's campaign had contact with Russian officials last year, noting the the FBI has opened its own probe.

Mar. 30, 2017, 6:48 a.m.

The 30-member-plus bloc of deficit hawks and right-flank conservatives had appeared for a while to be pushed aside by the movement that swept President Trump into office. (Sign up for our free video newsletter here http://bit.ly/2n6VKPR)

President Trump lobbed an electoral threat against hard right members of his party Thursday, saying on Twitter that he would fight them in the 2018 election if they did not "get on the team."

The Freedom Caucus salvo came less than a week after the group of about 30 Republican House members was blamed for derailing the GOP healthcare bill, despite efforts from Trump to negotiate with them.

Trump had previously made electoral threats to wayward members of his party, but Thursday's tweet was especially direct, threatening to cast them in the same light as Democrats.

The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!

Mar. 30, 2017, 4:54 a.m.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Thursday met for more than two hours with Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as they hoped to shore up troubled relations between their nations.

Making his first trip to Turkey, Tillerson became the highest-ranking Trump administration official to hold a face-to-face session with Erdogan, an increasingly authoritarian leader who is also a NATO member and key ally in the fight against Islamic State in Syria.

The meeting went longer than planned. Turkey and the United States disagree sharply on how to combat Islamic State: Washington supports Kurdish militias that Erdogan regards as an arm of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which Turkey and the U.S. consider a terrorist organization.

Mar. 29, 2017, 2:23 p.m.

Ivanka Trump is taking on a more formal White House role — with a title but not a paycheck — a move intended to quell ethics concerns raised about her status in her father's administration.

In a statement, the White House noted that the president's elder daughter already had an "unprecedented role" in the administration different from that of previous presidential children.

She now will take the title of special advisor to the president, and therefore assume the same responsibility to abide by ethics standards that other federal employees have, the statement said. The decision demonstrates the administration's "commitment to ethics, transparency and compliance," the administration said.